Murder Trial For Slain Wilde Lake Teacher Delayed: Report

ROCKVILLE, MD — The man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend, Wilde Lake High School teacher Laura Wallen, has been granted a postponement in the proceedings. His murder trial was set to begin April 9, and a judge has reportedly granted his request to postpone it until Sept. 4.

Attorneys for Tyler Tessier, 33, of Damascus, said the mountain of evidence submitted by prosecutors was the reason for delaying the trial, to provide more time to prepare their defense, WTOP reported.

Prosecutors begged to differ. They said that Tessier wanted to postpone the proceedings to give the public more time to forget about the death of the teacher, which occurred over Labor Day weekend 2017.

In a pretrial hearing on Friday, prosecutors played a call in which Tessier was recorded on a jailhouse phone telling his father that a delay in the case "looks better for me," according to WJZ.

"People forget. Things happen...when something more important happens, it puts me out of the public eye," Tessier reportedly said.

Wallen, 31, was reported missing on Sept. 4, 2017, and her disappearance prompted a search that was widely publicized.

Her parents joined Tessier in asking the public for help finding her at a press conference put together by the Montgomery County Police Department on Sept. 11, 2017. Her family offered a reward for information.

Police later said the decision to include Tessier in the press conference, while he was considered a person of interest, was strategic and done in concert with the family, to see what Tessier would say.

Her body was found Sept. 13, 2017, in a field near property police said Tessier had been frequenting the week after her disappearance.

Authorities said Wallen had been shot in the back of the head and charged Tessier with first-degree murder.

His attorneys say that Tessier is innocent and would never harm Wallen, according to WTOP.

Police reported that Tessier told authorities he had been in a relationship with another woman, whose home was one of three places he stayed the week after Wallen was reported missing.

"I can't talk about motive because I don't know what the motive was," Montgomery County Police Chief Tom Manger said upon Tessier's arrest in September. "...people have speculated [about] the fact that he was in another relationship, people have talked about the fact that the victim is pregnant. That's all speculation."

Tessier is being held without bail at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility pending trial. He did not appear in person at the hearing, where WTOP said he the judge first announced a June date then pushed the trial back to Sept. 4 after prosecutors had a scheduling conflict. Tessier was reportedly visible on a monitor, appearing emotionless and occasionally fidgeting with his hands.

"A monster with one bullet killed two generations of our family," her father, Mark Wallen, said at a press conference at the end of January in Annapolis.

A new bill, which is called "Laura and Reid's Law" to recognize the teacher and the name she had selected for her unborn child, would amend the definition of homicide when it comes to killing a fetus so that it includes "a fetus at any stage of development that is carried in the womb."

Homicide is the leading cause of death among pregnant women, according to a study from the Maryland Department of Health, which found it usually occurs in the first three months of pregnancy, with firearms the most common method.

Photos of Tyler Tessier and Laura Wallen courtesy of the Montgomery County Police Department.

This article has been updated.